


Sea, Sand & Gas and Air

by LateStarter58



Series: The House on the Beach: the Tom and Mandy Story [2]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Fluff, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 04:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17093864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: It's September, four years to the day since Bertie the lurcher chased a jogger up Aldeburgh beach, and Tom and a very pregnant Mandy are talking a walk for old time's sake.





	Sea, Sand & Gas and Air

You know that thing when you’ve never done something before so you’re not sure how it’s supposed to be? Or to feel? Well, I’d never had a baby before, and all the books and YouTube videos and midwife talks in the world can’t tell you how **_your_** birth experience is going to be. Or feel. 

It was the day. My due date, but we all know those are only approximate, right? And anyway, it was a special date for Tom and me, the fourth anniversary of the day we met. My dear Kiwi midwife Erin (who has become a friend) assured me that it would be fine for us to drive up to Suffolk for a couple of days, visit Diana, leave Bert with her until after the birth, check on my house in Aldeburgh, reminisce about our first encounter on the beach and still be back in London in time for her to help me deliver.

‘There’s no sign, the plug’s still there. Even if you do start, first babies normally take a while. You’ll be fine.’

She knew how much it meant to me to go up there and walk on that beach with him, one more time before we added an extra person to our family. So the morning after a lovely dinner with my soon-to-be mother-in-law, Tom and I drove over to Aldeburgh and parked at the house. Despite my absence the garden looked pretty good. Tom was generously financing the re-employment of Dotty’s former gardener, Martin. I wasn’t overly keen on accepting this, but the only alternative was to let it go to wrack and ruin and I hated that idea more. Bertie was running around happily. He liked the little courtyard in London and he adored Regent’s Park and Hampstead Heath, but he was delighted to be back in his old stamping- ground. After we had checked all was well indoors, we crossed the road together, the three of us plus _the bump,_ and headed for the sea.

It felt wonderful to have the beach under my feet again. I had missed going up there every weekend like I used to. It was a bit too far from London to do that, especially in the latter stages of pregnancy. Plus it was well-known who owned the house, and at weekends there was sometimes a little group of ‘well-wishers’ hanging around. But this was a weekday and term-time as well, so the beach and the road were more or less deserted. After we had traversed the struggling vegetation we met the obstacle of the shingle banks, which I found harder to climb than usual. Tom held me firmly by the arm and eventually put his around me to hold me up when I started to surf down the seaward side. I had never quite adjusted to the change in my centre of gravity.

When we reached the flatter part of the beach I sat down to empty my canvas sneakers of stones. Despite my efforts to tie the laces as tightly as possible, the shingle had still managed to creep down the sides during my mountaineering exploits. Tom sat next to me and Bertie shoved his wet and sandy nose in my face, as if to say ‘ _What areyou doing down there_?’ I took my time putting my shoes back on. It was heavenly sitting there. The waves were breaking softly, whispering up the sand; there was barely a breath of wind. The sun had come out and it was warming my face gently. I looked to my right, south towards the town and remembered the first sight I had of Tom, running towards me that morning. All I had been worried about was whether Bertie would chase him, which of course he did, and thank goodness for that!

The other reason for taking my time was that it was going to be a struggle to get up again. I was in no hurry. Tom sat next to me, his shoulder pressing into mine, the fingers of his left hand entwined with those of my right. Bertie was pottering around at the water’s edge, snapping occasionally at the foam and snuffling in the wet sand. I thought about the day a few weeks after that first meeting, when Bertie had tripped Tom over, almost as if he had decided to take matters into his own paws. Tom told me later that he had wanted to ask me out then, but he was going to be away for so long he thought better of it; and then he spent the next few months regretting that choice. Who knows what might have happened if he hadn’t waited another few months?

I shifted a little; sitting on the ground was causing a dull ache in my back, so I asked Tom to help me up. It took all his strength to pull me into an upright position. I was looking forward to the end of my pregnancy, if only to be rid of my beached-whale appearance and lack of mobility.  The summer had been uncomfortable being that size, although overall things had been good. After the initial morning sickness which made life rather unpleasant during my first trimester it had been plain sailing. Now I just wanted it to be over, although I was naturally apprehensive about labour, now it was just around the corner.

We turned to walk back towards the town when suddenly I became aware of a warm wetness running down my legs. I stopped walking.

‘Tom… I think my waters have broken.’

‘Oh shit. Are you OK?’

His face; well I had to laugh. He looked like the cartoon image of the expectant father. He had been to my ante-natal classes (or as many as he could) and being Tom, he had read extensively. This was a mixed blessing: he knew more than I did about possible complications. I preferred not to frighten myself, just trusting Erin to tell me what she thought I needed to know. He knelt down and looked at my leg.

‘It looks clear; that’s good.’

‘Thank you doctor. Now, get me back to the car.’

We made it back to the house and he settled me in the back seat.

‘You stay there. We’ll go back and collect Emma. She can drive. Oh, and I’ll ring Erin from there.’

I felt surprisingly calm, certainly much calmer than Tom looked. I suppose that’s biological; I had a job to do which needed all my energy. He was trying to hide it, but I could tell he was slightly panicky, but we had a plan in place. Emma had travelled up with us to visit her mum. She and Tom had been helping each other with lines (he was leaving for Louisiana soon; not ideal, but that’s his job). She would drive so he could be with me. We would leave Bertie with Diana, as we were going to anyway. My ‘go’ bag was in the car all the time nowadays.

Diana was wonderful. She soothed Tom, reassured me, encouraged Emma and sent us on our way quickly. My contractions were still nearly 20 minutes apart, and only slightly uncomfortable so no need to hurry; if my waters hadn’t broken I might have mistaken them for Braxton Hicks. Erin told Tom she would meet us at the clinic, which was very near home and perfect for us; the birthing suite was calm, welcoming and homely.

The only thing that went wrong was the massive hold-up just north of Colchester on the A12. Of course, there are simply no alternative routes to London until the A120 (and no more after that until much nearer the city either, come to that). I could feel Tom getting very anxious, but I squeezed his hand and spoke to him as we inched our way through the crowded back streets until we could get back on the main road beyond the accident which was blocking the route. It only took about 25 minutes to get back up to speed, but it felt a lot longer.

Tom was watching me closely and checking I was comfortable every couple of minutes. It was starting to get on my nerves a bit, so I engaged Emma in conversation about her up-coming projects. Every now and then I would wince – the contractions were getting stronger, and, text-book style, gradually closer together – and he would frown. It must be hard for a man, especially one as kind and sensitive as mine is to see their partner go through labour. And the whole business of pregnancy, come to that. Several times over the past months Tom had said to me how amazing it was, what was happening. He looked at the scan images, read his pile of books, rested his hand or sometimes his ear on my belly… I suppose it is miraculous, even if countless billions of women have done it before.

Once we were about half-an-hour from the Park Clinic, Tom rang Erin again. He reported on my contractions and I could hear her gentle voice soothing his furrowed brow, metaphorically. She was a fan of course; I spotted it immediately, during our first meeting with her. She was very professional, but I saw the way she looked at him. I don’t blame her. Everyone who meets him gets pulled into that gravity a bit, men, women, children, animals… I had come to trust her, and the fact that she was fond of us both helped.

No more hold-ups until we were nearly there, and then only the normal, everyday London traffic, nothing serious. By this time it was over three hours since we left the beach, and my contractions were still feeling like really bad period pains, and about 8 minutes apart. But as I got out of the car outside the front door of the clinic, I was hit by a much stronger one and had to sit down again until it passed. Poor Tom. This was the first time I was in real pain and showed it. He was trying to be calm, but his ability to act was being tried beyond endurance now. He grabbed my bag from the back of the car and sent Emma off to our place to park the car before she came back. I wanted her there; for him as much as for me.

Erin came out to meet us with a wheelchair and soon I was being settled into a delivery room. It was lovely, just like a bedroom in somebody’s home, not at all like a hospital. You had to look hard to spot the medical accoutrements like oxygen and nitrous oxide outlets, BP monitors and the foetal monitoring equipment. Erin was quietly efficient, setting up the bed how I wanted to be (as upright as possible), and then accepting it with good grace when I decided at the last minute that I preferred the chair. She did all the midwifey things, including a foetal heart tracing and said that all was well. I was as dilated as I should be at that stage, nothing to be worried about, all normal, if a little fast for a first baby.

‘Ah, yes, well…’ I coughed, only a little shame-faced. ‘I spoke to my cousin last week and she said my aunt once told her that Mum had both me and Trev _really fast._ Sorry, I forgot to say.’

I smiled at my long-suffering midwife.

‘Oh, you…!’ Erin shook her finger at me. ‘You knew I wouldn’t have allowed you to go up the coast if I knew that, didn’t you?’

I just grinned at her. Tom looked horrified; I hadn’t told him either. He was such a worrywart, and he had already got too many negative scenarios in his head thanks to his obsessive reading.  The pains were much, much stronger now, and I could not settle. I took Tom’s arm and walked around, up and down the corridor, reaching the waiting area in time to see Emma arrive back. She told us she had called Diana to let her know we had arrived safe and sound.

I grabbed for Tom’s hand as a particularly strong contraction started. I had read about them, and if like me you’ve had a hard time with periods you might think that you know what they will be like. Well to begin with they were like that, sort of, but now they had morphed into something else altogether. The sheer power of the muscles in my uterus; I could not believe how strongly they were pulling and squeezing. I had tried to keep as fit as I could, not spending too much time on the laptop, walking with Bert, going to the gym and doing all those gentle exercises they give you to do at the classes. And we kept having sex, of course (you’d know there was something wrong if Tom and I stopped having sex), on the grounds that it was good exercise. And since I was with the _sexiest man alive TM_, well, you know… You try keeping your hands off him!

I stood still, Tom looking at me anxiously until the contraction began to subside.

‘I think we’d better get back there, now.’

‘Do you want a wheelchair?’ A passing nurse had heard me.

‘No, I can walk, but we need to go now, Tom.’

Back in the room, Tom and Erin tried to help me onto the bed, and I sorry to say I snapped at them both. Just for a minute I don’t want anything to do with either of them, and most of all I didn’t want to be touched. I realised later that I was in what is known as ‘transition’, and women get pretty ratty when that’s happening. Tom looked at Erin and I saw her nodding to reassure him, and she mouthed ‘She’s fine.’

Then it started; I mean _really started._ With thenext contraction I had the most overwhelming urge I have ever had, the urge to push the baby out. I told Erin and she nodded again.

‘Thought so. Let me check you are dilated enough, love.’

She passed me the gas-and-air, which up until then I had been refusing.

‘Take it, just for now, it’ll help. Just until I’ve checked you. Breathe it a few times, until you feel it working.’

I did, and it did help. In fact, I kept using it and that was all the pain-relief I had, apart from Tom’s face to look at. That helped even more.

Now, up until then he had been coaching me with my breathing, you know, the old relaxation techniques they teach you in your ante-natal classes? They work really well when you are on the carpet of a meetings room in a hospital or clinic, lying next to your partner, _not in labour_. However, in the delivery room? To be fair, they did give me something else to think about, and they certainly gave Tom _something to do._ But now I was in the second stage, well, it was so overwhelming that I could think of nothing else except getting this baby OUT. Or at least that was what my body was concentrating on. The contractions were so strong, the urge to push so all-encompassing that I felt invincible. I think I said to Tom that I thought I was _The Hulk_ … so strong, not so much angry as…powerful. I felt the next contraction coming and I joined in, not fighting the feeling but putting my shoulder to the wheel beside it.

Poor Tom. He told me later that he had never felt so helpless in his adult life. All he could do was hold my hand (which was crushing his fingers every couple of minutes), mop my brow and watch. Erin encouraged me in her own way, and after what seemed to me like hours but was actually only about twenty minutes she called Tom round to look: the baby was crowning. His face was a picture.

‘Hey! No fair! He doesn’t get to see him first!’

We hadn’t asked to know the sex of the baby. I’m old-fashioned like that, Tom too, so we had kept our talk pretty gender-neutral, but English doesn’t always lend itself to that, not in the heat of the moment anyway.

‘Oh Mandy, here it comes!’ He was crying, Erin too. I was too busy holding off the urge to push again until she checked the cord.

‘Go for it, love!’

I did.

Three more contractions, Tom holding me tight the whole time, and our baby was born.

Erin caught her with all the skill of an All-Black and put her on my tummy. She grumbled a little, but no crying.

‘Hello you, Blondie. Look, there’s your Daddy.’

It was hard to drag my eyes away from our daughter, but I had to see Tom’s face. I couldn’t have believed that I could love him more, but I did right then. I sat and watched him falling in love with another person, and it was fine, it was great; it was normal. We had discussed names, of course, and settled on Rachael Diana for a girl.

So there she was, our little Rachael.

Erin tied the cord, and Tom cut it, then he took our daughter in his arms. She looked at him as he walked over to the chair and sat down, his blue eyes fixed on hers and that was that. She grabbed his finger, hers so tiny around his, as if she knew she would have absolute power over him for the rest of his life. And that is just how it should be.

So, dear reader, was my birth experience what I expected? Well, yes and no. But that’s how life works, isn’t it? Things hurt either much more or much less than you expect, but at least in labour you know you’re going to get something worth the pain at the end. And I have joined those countless billions of women; I’ve had my every-day miracle, my own special, unique one.

And what about Tom, you ask? Is he the kind of Daddy I expected him to be? Well so far, yes. And he has always been the man I need, and that’s enough for anyone, right?


End file.
